Leaning South...

...Or what happens when your boobs begin kissing your kneecaps...In other words OLD AGE ain't for the weak of heart...

Growing old means your gonna SAG...BIG TIME. Boobs kissing kneecaps is only one of the sag areas age forces upon us. There's the wattle...and I don't mean the one being swung around by Tom Turkey when he's trying to catch the eye of Henrietta Turkey...no I mean the one attached to YOUR sagging, wobbling, flaccid throat.

Oh, and we're not done with the bird comparisons that aging brings to us...how about those crow's feet that suddenly span out from your eyes. Now I gotta be honest here, I don't ever remember any crows landing on my face and doing a Walk-about on it...do you? Yet here I am with footprints my doctor attributes to crows that even my mirror reflects back at me. Makes me wonder if those crows aren't a lot like the elves that show up at the shoemaker's shop at night. Do you think those crow are only plowing their foot-roads onto my face at night?

Liver spots...what in the world are liver spots? My liver is somewhere inside my body...and no I'm not terribly sure without yanking out my Human Body Atlas just where that is. However, I'm pretty sure it isn't anywhere near my hands and yet liver spots are there, right where my satiny smooth, clear and silky flesh used to be. Now I really think I'd know if my liver hop, skipped, and jumped around inside me as it caroomed towards my hands so it could leave spots behind...yet for the life of me, I can't remember it ever doing so.

Let us not forget, especially for us women, that most delightful of changes...mental...oops, I mean MENOPAUSE. Menopause is a blessing and a curse...unfortunately the curse part is really HOT...as it hot flashes. Good Lord, you can get those suckers ANYWHERE.

It's not easy trying to find places to cool down when a flash hits. Society, and the police tend to frown on you diving into a fountain when they hit. (Personally I think meat lockers make more sense, but then I go for the cold...unlike Olympians who go for the gold.)

We've covered many things so far, but let's move on to the EYES...What old age does to eyes is nothing short of CRIMINAL!!!!!

There's reading glass at Stage One of old age eye-itis. Bifocals at Stage Two...Tri-Focals at Stage Three...and please God let me be dead before I find out how bad I see at Stage Four! Where's Ben the Inventor when you need him?

Some would say reaching old age is a good thing because you can now revert back to your second childhood...You're assuming that the first was so great I'd want to relive it...but assuming that it was, or that the second one...you know, this one that is softened by the encroaching numbness of Alzheimer's, will be better. Second childhood means adult diapers...can you say ewww? I certainly can.

Incontinence...which means your pee-er goes into overtime...you pee every time you hear the word water, see a raindrop, imagine a snowflake, roll over in bed...(I know that has nothing to do with water, but your pee-er doesn't care it still wants to drag you out of bed and make you pee.) Your pee-er isn't the only part that decides it has been working in slow motion all of your life. Your intestinal track decides that since you are old and it may have only a few years left to torment your mettle, it too increases its production levels. Just move into your bathroom...it'll save you a lot of time.

All joking aside, though, there are some thing that growing old does NOT give us...it does not give us the right to cut in lines before others. Rudeness is no more acceptable in the elderly than it is in any age bracket. I know there are those that believe because they have a multitude of years under their belt, that should give them carte blanche to step in front of younger people in lines at x-ray clinics, drug stores, grocery stores, and the like. Not true. Age does accord us many courtesies...not expectations. Rude, arrogant behavior has no excuse at ANY age.